About Staithes Museum’s schools offer in 2026

Staithes Museum is a small, independent museum rooted in the history of a North Yorkshire fishing village – but what we offer for learning is surprisingly broad. Our collections, archives and stories span hundreds of years and touch on themes that work across history, geography, science, art, literacy and citizenship.

This page is designed as a practical guide for teachers and educators. It explains what’s in our collection, what we’ve done before, and – most importantly – how flexible we are. If you have an idea that fits your pupils, we are very happy to shape something around it. Many of our education activities are free, and where funding is needed we are able to work with schools to develop grant applications.

What’s in the Collection?

Our collection reflects everyday life in Staithes and the surrounding coast. It includes:

Fishing & Maritime Life

• Traditional fishing equipment, including nets, ropes and tools

• Models and objects relating to cobles (the local fishing boats)

• Navigation instruments, including a sextant

• Stories of fishermen, families and the risks of working at sea

  
  

These objects work well for topics such as local history, coastal communities, work and industry, and science links around navigation and tides.

Social History & Everyday Life

• Household objects, clothing and personal items

• Tools connected to village trades and domestic labour

• Objects that show how daily life has changed over time

  
  

These are particularly useful for discussions about change over time, living memory, and comparing past and present.

Archives & Oral Histories

• Over 40 transcribed oral history interviews recorded in the 1980s

• First-hand memories covering childhood, food, work, war, fishing and village life

• Diaries and written records dating back to the 18th century

These materials are rich resources for literacy, history, citizenship and creative writing.

Art, Creativity & Staithes as a Place

• Images and objects relating to Staithes as an artists’ village

• Poetry, photographs and creative responses inspired by the village

These support art, English and place-based learning.

Captain Cook & Global Connections

Staithes Museum holds a small but significant group of objects connected to Captain James Cook, who was born nearby in Marton and trained as a seaman in Whitby before his voyages of exploration.

Our Cook-related material allows pupils to explore global journeys, encounters with different cultures, and the way museums use objects to tell complex stories.

The collection includes:

• Objects and images associated with Cook’s voyages, including material linked to the Endeavour

• A Tahitian war club collected during Cook’s Pacific journeys

• A rare emu egg, used as a focal object for discussing exploration, science and natural history

• Coins and commemorative material related to Cook and his legacy

• Portraits and visual material used to explore how historical figures are represented over time

These objects are particularly effective for object-led discussion, helping pupils ask questions such as:

• Why did people travel so far in the 18th century?

• Why were objects collected and brought back to Britain?

• What can these objects tell us — and what can’t they tell us?

• How do museums explain stories that involve exploration, empire and cultural encounter?

Curriculum links include:

• History: significant individuals, local links to national and global history

• Geography: journeys, mapping, oceans and continents

• English: storytelling, questioning and discussion

• Citizenship: different cultures, perspectives and ways of knowing

Captain Cook sessions are always delivered in an age-appropriate and reflective way, encouraging curiosity while supporting thoughtful discussion about the past and how it is interpreted today.

Visiting the Museum

The museum is located in the centre of Staithes village. We can:

• Host small groups on-site

• Offer object-handling and discussion-based sessions

• Provide pre-visit or follow-up materials

  
  

We’re also very happy to bring sessions into schools where travel is difficult.

What We’ve Done Before

We already have experience working with local and regional primary schools, both on-site at the museum and through outreach visits.

Case Study: Seton Primary School Visit (September 2024 and 2025)

In September 2024 and 2025 we welcomed approximately 20 pupils and 3 teachers from Seton Primary School to Staithes Museum as part of a local relationship. 

For many of the children, this was their first ever visit to the museum, despite living locally. The visit helped demystify the museum space and build pride in local heritage.

Activities included:

• Welcome and introduction to the museum

• Clear guidance on object handling (what can and can’t be touched)

• Hands-on handling of maritime tools, rope-making equipment and personal artefacts

• A worksheet for spotting and counting objects

• Q&A and group discussion

• Each child taking home a postcard from the museum collection, which they used to send feedback about their favourite objects.

Outcomes:

• Increased confidence in engaging with heritage spaces

• Strong links built with local teachers

• Follow-up classroom work, including thank-you letters to museum staff

• Planning for a future loan box to support schools unable to travel

Outreach: Appleton Wiske Primary School

In 2025 we piloted our first full “museum-in-school” outreach visit at Appleton Wiske Primary School, taking objects, stories and activities directly into the classroom. This visit was designed to test how the museum could support schools that are unable to travel, while still offering meaningful, object-based learning.

The school requested sessions linked to local history, exploration and everyday life in the past, suitable for mixed age groups. We therefore designed two contrasting but connected workshops, tailored to age, attention span and curriculum focus.

Session 1: Captain Cook and the Incredible Emu Egg (Reception – Year 1)

This session introduced younger pupils to the idea of journeys, exploration and learning through objects, using storytelling and visual, tactile materials.

Objects and materials brought:

• A real emu egg, linked to Captain Cook’s voyages

• The illustrated storybook Captain Cook and the Incredible Emu Egg

• A cork globe with pins and string to trace journeys

• Real museum objects from places visited during Cook’s voyages (including a Tahitian war club)

• A framed portrait of Captain Cook and Joseph Banks

Why these objects?

The emu egg and unusual objects provided a strong sensory focus and sense of wonder, while the globe and string helped children visualise distance and movement around the world. Using real museum objects and images reinforced that stories are connected to real historical collections.

Curriculum links:

• Geography: understanding the wider world and journeys

• History: significant individuals from the past

• Literacy: listening, storytelling and discussion

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Activities included gentle object handling, comparing size and scale ("Are you as tall as an emu?"), colouring in some camouflaged emus, and following Cook’s route from England to Australia.

Session 2: Life in Old Staithes – Fishermen, Families and Ganseys (Years 2–6)

This session focused on local history and working lives, using clothing and photographs to explore how people lived and worked in a fishing village.

Objects and materials brought:

• Two authentic Staithes ganseys (smock jackets!!)

• A traditional Staithes bonnet

• Historic and modern photographs of Staithes fishermen and families

• Knitting pattern worksheets and drawing materials

  
  

Why these objects?

Clothing offered a powerful way to talk about work, identity and community. The ganseys allowed pupils to make close observations, while photographs helped them place objects in real historical contexts.

Curriculum links:

• History: local history and change over time

• Art & Design / Design & Technology: pattern, design and materials

• English: speaking, listening and descriptive language

  
  

Pupils acted as “gansey detectives,” identifying patterns, sketching designs and discussing what clothing can tell us about people’s lives.

Outcomes and Learning

• High levels of engagement, particularly from older pupils

• Strong positive feedback from school staff, who noted that the artefacts “brought it all to life”

• Valuable learning for the museum in refining outreach delivery, age differentiation and session timing

This pilot visit confirmed that bringing the museum into schools can be an effective and flexible way to support curriculum learning, and it now informs the development of our wider schools outreach and loan box programme.

Work Experience

Staithes Museum offers work experience placements for young people interested in museums, heritage, history, arts and community work.

As a small, independent museum, we are able to offer hands-on, meaningful placements that give students a genuine insight into how a museum operates day to day. Work experience with us goes beyond observation and allows students to build confidence, skills and real experience.

What Students Might Do

Depending on age, interests and timing, work experience placements can include:

• Supporting front-of-house activity and welcoming visitors

• Practising customer service, including working on the museum till

• Talking to visitors about the museum and its collection

• Learning how museum collections are cared for, researched and interpreted

• Assisting with exhibitions, displays and interpretation

• Using research and computer skills to support museum projects

For example, our most recent pair of work experience students gained experience working with visitors and the till, then used their research and IT skills to refresh and update the museum’s railway exhibition, helping to improve how the story was presented to the public.

Who It’s For

• Secondary school students completing required work experience

• College or sixth-form students exploring heritage, arts or humanities pathways

• Young people with an interest in local history, museums or community heritage

We are especially keen to support local young people and those who may not otherwise have easy access to cultural work experience opportunities.

Practical Details

• Placements are usually short-term (for example, one week or a small number of days)

• All placements are supervised and tailored to the individual student

• Timing and activities are agreed in advance

• We can provide confirmation letters or brief feedback for schools if required

If you’re a teacher, careers lead, parent or student interested in work experience at Staithes Museum, please get in touch to discuss availability and suitability.

What We Can Offer Now

Based on this experience, we can currently offer:

• Museum visits with object handling and discussion

• School outreach sessions (“bringing the museum to you”)

• Age-differentiated workshops for Reception through to Year 6 (we’re happy to come up with a new workshop to engage older pupils - just let us know!)

• Story-led sessions for younger pupils

• Object-based investigation and creative activities for older pupils

• Local history, geography and global exploration themes

All sessions are adaptable in length (20, 35 or 45–50 minutes) and content.

Downloadable Materials — Free to Use, CC0

We’ve created a range of free downloadable resources to support learning at school or at home. All are available under a Creative Commons licence — which means you can copy, adapt and reuse them in your classroom, or include them in your own learning materials.

Activity Sheets & Worksheets

• A Museum for Children — a fun writing activity where pupils practise creating their own exhibit labels using real museum objects. Printable in colour and black & white.

• Strange Things at the Museum — an English worksheet that builds defining relative clauses through a creative game-based task.

• Fairytale Dominoes: Staithes Myths — a storytelling card game to develop speaking, imagination and narrative skills. (Cards + instructions included.)

• Guess Who? Captain Cook — descriptive language game using historic portraits from the museum’s Cook collection.

  
  

Games & Interactive Learning

• Cottage Map Crossword — a village map activity that combines local geography and map reading with puzzle-solving.

  
  

How to Use These

Teachers can:

• print them out for classroom use

• use them as warm-up activities before a visit

• integrate them into local history or literacy units

• adapt the files to suit learners’ ages and needs

  
  

If you’d like bespoke downloadable resources on a particular theme (e.g., Captain Cook, fishing life, oral histories), just get in touch with us and we’ll happily help create them.

Flexible, Teacher-Led and Collaborative

We don’t offer a fixed menu of workshops – and that’s deliberate.

Instead, we:

• Work with teachers to shape sessions around curriculum needs

• Adapt content for different key stages and abilities

• Respond to pupils’ interests and local context

• Combine history with creative, practical and discussion-based activities

  
  

If you’re interested in:

• A one-off visit

• A longer-term project

• A cross-curricular topic

• A creative or wellbeing-focused activity

…we’re very happy to explore it with you.

Cost, Access & Funding

Many of our education activities are free, especially where sessions are small-scale or exploratory.

Where a project needs more time, resources or repeat visits, we are often able to:

• Work with schools to develop a grant application from the museum

• Adapt projects to fit available budgets

• Pilot ideas on a small scale first

Please don’t let cost be a barrier to getting in touch.

Get in Touch

If you’d like to talk through an idea – even at a very early stage – we’d love to hear from you.

You can contact us via the museum website www.staithes-museum.org.uk  or email us directly at staithesmuseum@gmail.com , and we’re always happy to have an informal conversation to see what might work best for your pupils.

Staithes Museum believes learning works best when it’s collaborative, local and led by curiosity.